BUDAPEST: Hungary will expand energy cooperation with the US, in particular in the use of nuclear energy, including the development and ins...
BUDAPEST: Hungary will expand energy cooperation with the US, in particular in the use of nuclear energy, including the development and installation of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced.
He is now in Washington, where he intends to hold meetings with Congress and the US administration, as well as with the leadership of American companies.
"We are significantly expanding our energy cooperation and will add a very powerful nuclear component to it," the foreign minister said in an interview with Hungarian television channel M1.
Szijjarto noted that Hungary has had a nuclear power plant in Paks for 40 years, generating approximately half of the country's electricity.
"The United States also uses nuclear energy, and in the coming period, Hungarian-American energy cooperation will expand through its active use. In addition to large nuclear power plants, technological development of small modular nuclear power plants has begun," Szijjarto said.
He added that an agreement had been signed between Hungarian and American companies for the development and use of these technologies.
"We will research and promote them in Hungary," the minister stated. He also asserted that "American [SMR] technologies are the most advanced and there is a chance of using them in the near future."
Earlier, Szijjarto announced that Hungary was beginning work on constructing a small modular nuclear reactor on its territory using technology from the American corporation GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy. The Hungarian nuclear energy company Hunatom signed an agreement with the Polish company Synthos Green Energy, which uses GE Vernova technology and is implementing it in Eastern European countries.
The development of SMRs is considered one of the promising areas in nuclear energy. Russian state corporation Rosatom, as well as a number of European and Chinese companies, are intensively developing these technologies.
On the Russia-US Summit
In an interview with M1, Szijjarto made no mention of preparations for US President Donald Trump's visit to Budapest, where he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. A Hungarian television journalist who questioned the minister also made no mention of this, despite the perception that this was the main purpose of his trip to Washington.
On October 16, after a telephone conversation with Putin, Trump announced that they had agreed to meet soon in Budapest. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov also stated that Moscow and Washington would "without delay" begin preparations for a new meeting between the two leaders, which could be held in the Hungarian capital. Orban ordered the establishment of an organizing committee to prepare for the summit, specifying that this work "began on Thursday evening." Hungary attaches great importance not only to the upcoming Russian-American summit, which could be a key step toward resolving the conflict in Ukraine, but also to US-Hungarian negotiations, hoping to focus them on economic issues. Budapest is particularly interested in renewing the double taxation agreement with the US, which was not extended by the Biden administration.
-News Feed
COMMENTS